Critic Reviews

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90

games xtreme

It's a good game, worth buying, it brings new ideas to an old franchise, hopefully it might indicate new things and better games and only time will tell. It's a very well put together factually accurate game. As RTS games go, it's one of the strongest I've played for a while, so overall it lived up to the promises the preview made.

In today’s gaming world, the multitude of interactive adventures offered in the World War II genre are staggering. Whether charging up the shores of Normandy to take out German machine gun embankments on D-Day or parachuting behind enemy lines to secure Pegasus Bridge many of us have become intimately familiar with the most harrowing and famous conflicts of the European Theater of War. Like a tenth outing to Disneyland however, many of these locales have begun to elicit a more subdued awe, handicapped by feelings of repetitive familiarity – the hedgerows of France, the beaches of Guadalcanal or the urban wasteland of Stalingrad – the overwhelming focus on the European and Pacific theaters of war has kept lesser known though just as vital spheres of the conflict on the periphery of the spotlight.

Desert Rats vs. Afrika Korps has a lot going for it. Great graphics, great sound effects and it's damn fun to play. Regardless if you are history buff or if you are just looking for a fun title with a different slant on the usual RTS standard, you should give Desert Rats vs. Afrika Korps a try.

If you’re a fan of RTS games then you could definitely do worse than give Desert Rats a look. With plenty of variety in the missions, a good challenge, and a good story, it will add up to a game that pretty much everyone should be able to enjoy, especially as what problems there are are not completely debilitating (though can be annoying). A game I’d certainly recommend.

Generally a good game and well worth getting hold of to improve your RTS collection and general games collection. It’s not the greatest RTS game of all time but it more than holds its own at the top end of the pecking order.

Desert Rats vs. Afrika Korps is a great wartime game with great graphics, but they can overpower some weaker PC’s. Great controls with a tough AI makes you come back for more. Like I said before it can be a little overwhelming at first but that is just part of learning a game this in-depth. Overall Desert Rats vs. Afrika Korps is a great game and I would recommend it to any war game player.

Desert Rats vs Afrika Korps is not only an enjoyable real-time strategy game, but one that offers a different formula to the base building and resouce gathering usually present in C&C-style games, and also provides a setting which has until now been very rarely covered in computer games.

Desert Rats vs. Afrika Corps is a fun game. I can’t find much fault with the time I spent with it. But its overall feel is less than stellar. The game will crawl along at even medium resolutions and the pathfinding seriously hampers you at times. The dialogue, both written and spoken, feels amateurish. It should be noted that I was using a review copy of the game so it’s possible some of these issues may be addressed before release. Overall, if you have been waiting for a tactical WW2 game then I can safely recommend DRvAC. Just be ready for a bumpy ride.

Desert Rats vs. Afrika Korps (DRvsAK) is another RTS, situated in World War II. This time we dive into the North-African battlefield. That means sand, lots of sand, sand as far as the eye can see. Is the game as drab as its environments or can DRvsAK turn into an unsuspected sleeper-hit?

And so Desert Rats is a game that looks good and plays reasonably well, but is likely to test your patience more than your military skills. Plus, since the 16-mission story-mode campaign can probably be played in about 15 hours, Desert Rats might not have the longest shelf life on your computer, either. So I wouldn’t really recommend you purchase the game, but there are worse choices out there, and Desert Rats might be entertaining enough once it hits the bargain bin.

In the real army they spend months training individuals to instinctively react to changing conditions in a way that supports the goals and objectives of the army as a whole and the other individual allied soldiers. Everyone, from tank drivers to artillery spotters to supply officers to riflemen, understands the overall mission at hand and how their separate role fits into the overall plan. A strong hierarchy of command ensures that company-level commanders can direct their platoons into battle without necessarily leading each of them by hand.

Unfortunately, the game itself isn't really as compelling as it should be, making Desert Rats vs. Afrika Korps yet another pretender to the RTS throne. Hopefully, next time the company will put its concepts to better use.

70

GameCell UK

At its most basic DRVAK is a RTS (Real Time Strategy) game; however all of the resource production and raw material harvesting has been stripped away which allows it to focus on the S part of RTS. The game should have plenty of tactical potential and is full of historical authenticity.

Tanks are great. Tanks are great because they trundle and anything that trundles, by definition, must surely be a most worthy creation. There's a definite certainty, an ominous inevitability about things that trundle. Something mechanical that rolls forward at a leisurely pace, that rumbles with immense strength and power, is obviously pretty unfazed about whatever might be going on and such contraptions possess the cool detachment that rivals even The Fonz.

Nothing quite says, “Real-time Strategy” like a line of tanks thundering toward an objective. While the tank rush has limited chances of success in Desert Rats vs. Afrika Korps, tanks still play a crucial role. After all, this is North Africa during World War II – a theater that featured possibly the most tank-intensive fighting ever.

Fast tank attacks have been a real-time strategy convention since Red Alert, but tactics in historical tank battles are much more complex than the typical RTS slugfest. Simple details like weaker side and rear armor and a multitude of different models help give the tank battles in Desert Rats vs. Afrika Korps a historical feel without slowing the action down. In the midst of it all, the 3D combat looks great and features intricately modeled, smoothly animated tanks and destructible buildings. Unfortunately, when you factor in having to control a handful of different infantry types and various support vehicles--in addition to the tanks--the real fight can turn into overcoming bad pathfinding and unwieldy numbers of units in the guise of a generally unhelpful interface.

Only Blitzkrieg came close to getting the WWII RTS right, striking a largely effective balance
between realistic elements and playability. Desert Rats vs. Afrika Korps
has a lot of the elements that made Blitzkrieg so appealing: a realistic feel, ready playability, and dazzling good looks—along with some annoying flaws of its own.

If you can suffer through the steep learning curve and get a really good grasp on the tactical possibilities, there is some enjoyment to be found here. However, all but the most hardcore strategy gamers should probably look elsewhere for their WWII simulation fix.

60

GameSpy

Old friends face off as opposing commanders in Desert Rats Vs. Afrika Korps, a tactical real-time strategy game set in the deserts of North Africa. Sketches in a notebook propel the narrative (which also involves a love triangle), but the story serves as a mere backdrop to a gorgeous, compelling game of tactics and cunning. Were it not for a few gameplay and interface qualms that should have been ironed out during play testing, Desert Rats vs. Afrika Korps (DRvAK) could have been the "next big thing" in real-time strategy.